A Light Within Darkness.

With my trips into my Demon Kiln to absorb Warp Energies and with how the taboo of interspecies sex was broken with Elesmere increasingly frequently over the next week I made quick progress through the Nascent Realm of cultivation.

A week after Elesmere and I began doing the deed regularly I had gone from the second level of the Nascent realm to the latter part of the seventh realm and my divine senses had greatly grown with the constant trips to the spider domain to acquire large chunks of compressed biomass that I stored in our old vault as we prepared a place for us to find a place for me to build a ship.

"How do you plan on transporting the ship into a space where we can actually take off?" Elesmere asked as she finished off a large pole of Wraith Bone that would act as the bones of the living ship artifact, I was going build.

I nodded to her question as I myself continued to engrave arrays onto large plates of Wraith Bone that I had learnt was phenomenal at holding arrays and with wraith bone being able to regenerate on its own over time it was perfect for making stationary arrays that wouldn't be in danger of being harmed as the self-regeneration properties could instead be tied to rather than of repairing battle damage to instead focused upon pulling Warp energies to refuel the arrays that were engraved upon it.

Making a large-scale artifact wasn't at all easy even with the literal blueprints burned into my head as there were literally more than five thousand array plates of various sizes that would need to be placed specially around the ship in order to provide its ships abilities and more importantly, make sure the living ship didn't decide that shooting me and the other occupants into the vacuum of space was a swell idea.

But the biggest issue of an artifact ship wasn't actually the number of Array plates or even the materials to build said ship. The biggest problem I was having was the creation of the artifacts core. I needed a material that could house and more importantly, nurture a tiny soul that would become the ships artifact spirit and for a while, I had no idea what material I could use before I got the idea to use Wraith Bone and heavily filtered and distilled demon essence from the Warp.

"That core is... Unnerving." Elesmere muttered as I worked on the large purple and red crystal that was to be the core of the artifact spirit that would house and nourish its consciousness and seeing my dirty look thrown to her about her complaining she explained. "It's like a parody of my people's soul stones that are used to capture their souls should they die in battle."

I shrugged as it was actually quite similar if much more refined. "Yes, well if you stuffed an Eldar soul into this and had they the right knowledge, they could cultivate their spirits back into a corporeal form and walk amongst the living. Hell, if their souls became strong enough, they could literally breed with your people." I chuckled seeing Elesmere's face twitch at the thought of those reviled yet still respected souls that would pilot the mechs of her people actually creating children.

"Wait are you insulting my people's work with the Spirit Stones?" Elesmere asked pointedly as she poked my side when I pulled back from my work to stretch.

I couldn't help but squirm to her act of poking my ticklish spot before I slapped her hand away and snipped back. "No... I am not insulting the oh-so-wise race that has conquered and held the galaxy for literally millions of years and only in the course of a couple thousand years is now facing extinction and even then, still can't come together... Nope, not at all..." As Elesmere's face took on a blush of anger I spoke again. "Yeah, you guys had magical stones taken from Warp-enthused worlds that could house your people's stone, but did you guys never consider strengthening those souls through your already great psychic talents?"

Like seriously according to my cultivation knowledge, those Spirit Stones were ridiculous with how they could safely capture and make sure those people's souls didn't decay. I certainly wasn't going to mention how they could use shove the soul-filled Spirit Stone within the chest of any other race and would eventually overwrite them on all levels until that person literally became that Eldar whose soul was in their chest at all levels with the soul of the stone taking over the body and consuming the host's soul.

Basically, it was rather similar to Lucius the Eternal's blessing from Slaanesh as each reincarnation would increase the Eldar's souls' power and weight so eventually, they could literally just grab and steal some poor bastards' body by being in the same room.

So, for very good reason I won't be enlightening people about much of the knowledge I carried as such things would only lead to people attempting to kill me so they could hoard the knowledge for themselves.

"Anyway, the core will be fine for now. It needs a long while to absorb ambient energies to even form the smallest wisp of a spirit. In the meantime, I am going to check around the outer sections of the hive to see how we can fly out." I said as I stood up and stretched to get rid of any stiffness from being hunched over and engraving arrays onto the core of the artifact ship, I was going to build.

Elesmere nodded gently as she went back to her own room to make the smaller pieces of the wraith bone I asked for in the relaxation of her own bed. "Very well but do be careful as the shadows of the city have darkened as of late," Elesmere said cryptically.

Knowing already how it was a fool's errand to pry into the hunches of the Aeldari I simply thanked her for the advice and continued on my way into the streets of the Lower Hive.

-

Once I found another den of villainy and in this case, it seemed to be instead of a slave ring it was actually a drug den that had Las carbine-wielding guards outside I had to pay a decent number of credits to get in and apparently it was an all you can blow buffet. And even better was how it is seemingly also a prime suicide spot as my senses could feel the still human bodies that had collapsed against their tables obviously from overdosing on whatever drugs they got ahold of.

"So, what do you guys do with the bodies?" I asked honestly kinda curiously to the man running the bar that was serving 'high quality' booze.

The grizzled man ignored my question to continue staring blankly at the wall, but I did not enjoy being ignored... I could literally feel the negative energies and lost souls with my Nascent Realm divine senses so as I leaned forward grabbed the dirty hair of the man in front of me and smashed his face into the bar table in front of us I didn't feel any guilt.

"Don't ignore my questions or I will get my answers in a more hands-on manner," I warned as the man slumped backward crying out in pain as his face was to put bluntly smashed into with his nose looking like past and his front teeth either knocked out or having pierced his lips and cheeks from the impact.

"Die." A guard snarled pushing a glowing Las pistol against my head behind me and I felt the equivalent of the hot air coming out of a blow-dryer wash through my hair as he pulled the trigger.

I slowly turned to the man behind me with the chair I was sitting in squeaking shrilly with the motion. "Do you want to die with an intact corpse or do you want to be mulched like the corpse starch you guys help the corpse guild make with these bodies," I asked softly with my eyes glowing with a star's fire.

The man audibly swallowed with his eyes rolling into the back of his head as he dropped to the ground in a dead faint from fright.

"Killing someone who fainted like a little bitch... Just doesn't feel right. It's like killing a puppy you know?" I said conversationally to the man behind the bar as I once again grabbed him by his hair before pushing him into a nearby seat. "Anyway, the topic of whether it's eviler to kill a bunny versus killing a puppy isn't here nor there. Can you even speak, or are you too fucked up man?" I asked seeing the man who I smashed his face into the bar was only cradling his face and hardly even reacted to me pulling him across the bar and into the seat via his hair.

The man didn't react to my question and just kept up his gargled screams through his wrecked face and actually now that I was looking at him closer, I noticed I probably shattered his jaw as well. "Well, shit now that's got to hurt. Lemmie get that for you." I said and then I stabbed two fingers through the man's eye socket and ignited a small star inside the man's brain to instantly fry his brain giving him a painless death.

Looking around the bar of people that weren't completely blitzed out of their minds and staring at me frozen with fear as I stood up with a sigh. "Alright, gentlemen here is how this is going to go. I already made an example out of the people who refused to answer my questions and how futile armed resistance is. Now just answer my questions and you will never see me again."

A man staggered to his feet from one of the shadowy corners of the bar and I had to raise an eyebrow at how well-dressed he was and other than a cybernetic eye he didn't have any other deformities. He also had a sword and a Las pistol at his hips as well and from the style of the items in question, I wouldn't be surprised if he was some kind of trader.

"What do you want to know son." The man spoke with a thick husky drawl to his voice as he dauntlessly walked over to the seat of the man, I burned the brains out of and with nary a blink he pushed the corpse out of the way as he sat beside me.

"I need to know a series of places I could launch a ship from that won't get shot down by the laser batteries surrounding the Hivecity," I spoke honestly as I didn't have some way to ask in a roundabout manner and use the peripheral information in order to escape the city in a ship that was quite different Imperial make.

The man huffed and shook his head. "Been ferrying supplies to the various Hive cities across the planet and it's not the launching of the ship that's the problem kid. It's getting into orbit as with all the pollution closer to the surface makes radar and other things to lock onto ships useless. But once you leave the pollution lines, they will question you for credentials and should you refuse to answer or the codes you give for the various VIP goods being delivered to City Governers and other high-ranking officials don't match they will simply shoot you down without any questions."

I couldn't help but smile at how helpful the man was being, so I hummed in thought for a minute. "How fast can they lock onto and shoot a ship should it leave directly from a Hive and head straight into space."

The man scoffed and gave me a look that basically called me an idiot. "The planets laser batteries are basically all automated to lock onto ships that are flagged as non-compliant so should you refuse to answer within ten seconds of the call coming to you... Well, more than a couple hundred powerful laser cannons strong enough to melt a meteor storm will shoot you out of the sky."

After a few more questions I learned how the anti-air defenses typically worked and as a reward to the guy I gave me a couple hundred credits and after a moment of hesitation I gave him a small array stick that once snapped would make a projection of me and my projection would launch a full powered swing of my sword imbued with my sword Qi at whatever was threatening the person who snapped the array stick.

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